The past isn't dead. It isn't even the past," William Faulker wrote.The Southern Reporter constitutes a report on the collisions between a present that cannot find its voice and a past that reaches out incessantly into the lives of contemporary men and women.

An old Louisiana lawyer finds himself in California seeking a missing heir who is a physicist, musician, doctor, theologian-and a leader of a crazed and murderous santanistic cult.

A childless retired couple prepares treats for Halloween's children-only to find that the "children" have taken on the character of their terrifying...